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out.
    And that is not the way to think, he told himself, and there is not you, and there are no people that things must not happen to. Neither you nor this old man is anything. You are instruments to do your duty. There are necessary orders that are no fault of yours and there is a bridge and that bridge can be the point on which the futureof the human race can turn. As it can turn on everything that happens in this war. You have only one thing to do and you must do it. Only one thing, hell, he thought. If it were one thing it was easy. Stop worrying, you windy bastard, he said to himself. Think about something else.
    So he thought about the girl Maria, with her skin, the hair and the eyes all the same golden tawny brown, the hair a little darker than the rest but it would be lighter as her skin tanned deeper, the smooth skin, pale gold on the surface with a darkness underneath. Smooth it would be, all of her body smooth, and she moved awkwardly as though there were something of her and about her that embarrassed her as though it were visible, though it was not, but only in her mind. And she blushed when he looked at her, and she sitting, her hands clasped around her knees and the shirt open at the throat, the cup of her breasts uptilted against the shirt, and as he thought of her, his throat was choky and there was a difficulty in walking and he and Anselmo spoke no more until the old man said, “Now we go down through these rocks and to the camp.”
    As they came through the rocks in the dark, a man spoke to them, “Halt. Who goes?” They heard a rifle bolt snick as it was drawn back and then the knock against the wood as it was pushed forward and down on the stock.
    â€œComrades,” Anselmo said.
    â€œWhat comrades?”
    â€œComrades of Pablo,” the old man told him. “Dost thou not know us?”
    â€œYes,” the voice said. “But it is an order. Have you the password?”
    â€œNo. We come from below.”
    â€œI know,” the man said in the dark. “You come from the bridge. I know all of that. The order is not mine. You must know the second half of a password.”
    â€œWhat is the first half then?” Robert Jordan said.
    â€œI have forgotten it,” the man said in the dark and laughed. “Go then unprintably to the campfire with thy obscene dynamite.”
    â€œThat is called guerilla discipline,” Anselmo said. “Uncock thy piece.”
    â€œIt is uncocked,” the man said in the dark. “I let it down with my thumb and forefinger.”
    â€œThou wilt do that with a Mauser sometime which has no knurl on the bolt and it will fire.”
    â€œThis is a Mauser,” the man said. “But I have a grip of thumb and forefinger beyond description. Always I let it down that way.”
    â€œWhere is the rifle pointed?” asked Anselmo into the dark.
    â€œAt thee,” the man said, “all the time that I descended the bolt. And when thou comest to the camp, order that some one should relieve me because I have indescribable and unprintable hunger and I have forgotten the password.”
    â€œHow art thou called?” Robert Jordan asked.
    â€œAgustín,” the man said. “I am called Agustín and I am dying with boredom in this spot.”
    â€œWe will take the message,” Robert Jordan said and he thought how the word aburmiento which means boredom in Spanish was a word no peasant would use in any other language. Yet it is one of the most common words in the mouth of a Spaniard of any class.
    â€œListen to me,” Agustín said, and coming close he put his hand on Robert Jordan’s shoulder. Then striking a flint and steel together he held it up and blowing on the end of the cork, looked at the young man’s face in its glow.
    â€œYou look like the other one,” he said. “But something different. Listen,” he put the lighter down and stood holding his rifle. “Tell me